Hey guys, when you need to weld up a hole in steel, and you can get to the back side of it like the holes on the cowl where the stock hinges bolted to as an example.You can hold a piece of aluminum or brass to the back side of the hole then when your wire hits it, it makes connection, and you're able to weld the hole up, but the aluminum or brass is not welded to the hole.(Be sure to grind the metal to a bright finish, removing all paint and rust on both sides before starting)

Hey FORD guys! I find it aggrivating to install an automatic Ford trans to the engine even in the floor out of the vehicle.Here's a good one: get the correct thread bolts for the bellhousing(usually 7/16x14) get them about 2 to 3" longer than the stock ones, cut the heads off of them, take a cutoff wheel, and cut a slot in the end where the head was.Then simply use a slotted screwdriver to screw them in.You really only need about 4 of them 2 at the top and 2 at the bottom.After you've done this you can seat the torque convertor all the way back (MAKE SURE YOU'VE PUT AT LEAST 2 QTS OF TRANS FLUID IN THE TORQUE CONVERTOR IF IT'S A NEW TORQUE CONVERTOR) then you can pick up the trans and line it up on the long bolts, you can slide it forward, and have it lined up while you spin the torque convertor to line up the "studs" on the convertor. When you've got them lined up you can slide it all the way forward, and install the other bolts that are not in.Then you can back out your alignment studs and replace them with the regular bellhousing bolts! This is a way cool trick!! It really works.

Thanks guys for the responce of this thread, and moving it to the top.I think it will be helpful to all!! Just remember that these tips, while very simple most of the time, are not ment to belittle anyone, just for help to everyone!!!

Though not specific to effies, melting parafin wax works well for removing stubborn bolts in engines. Using a piece of wood and 2 screws, you can stretch a spring (clutch?) to the desired length, and then soak it in a 20 oz. bottle cut in half(between the screws) of water, then set it in the freezer. After it's froze, you remove the screws, and set the spring in place. Once the water melts, the spring will retract and tighten itself. Using a clothesline rope works great in reinstalling windows.

I find my ideas have long been used by the "veterans" from years gone by, lol.

o.k. here's two : 1 , don't let your two year old grandaughter help you work on the truck when she's carrying a 3 pound sledge , it hurts when you use your hand as a stop between the hammer and the fender , 2 , when we replaced the bent valve and guide , and the retainer clips we could not find a spring compressor to work inside the block while in the truck , and i really didn't want to wait for one too get here . went to the local oreilly's and bought a valve spring compressor for small engines that had two "cups " on the ends , and geuss what , it worked . i'll try and find the part no. / receipt if you wanna know . it was for a briggs .

I thought of a couple more? First when installing hard to reach spark plugs, use a piece of fuel hose usually 5/16" slip it over the spark plug, and use it like a flex driver It works great!! You can also remove them after you've broken them loose, but sometimes it don't work as well(due to oil and grease)

2nd I made me a firing tester with an old spark plug and a metal clamp.I just cut a couple of slots in the clamp and took a hose clamp and put the spark plug to the clamp then tightened the hose clamp up! You just clamp the squeeze clamp to any metal thing on the truck and connect a spark plug. You can watch and see if it's firing or not by having someone turn the engine over or if you have a crank button remote you can work it your self. Works like a charm.

Alot of old turn signals have bad sockets.Most parts houses have "universal" sockets you can cut out your old ones and either rivet the new ones in or weld them.Then you've got new t/s sockets. Works great for drivers.

I make what I call a socket scoop for my hard to reach bolt like the top bell house bolts I make a sheet metal cone with a few tabs then I drill a hole in the tabs and place the scoop over my bolt head and fill weld the holes to the bell house so the next time I have to remove the trans mission I just get my socket in the scoop and it guides my socket to the bolt or nut for easier time.

When block sanding the compound contours on stuff like fenders, use a smooth sided radiator hose under the sandpaper to follow the contours (in an X pattern). Works very well and is a LOT cheaper than the bendable blocks (that don't bend enough anyway).

A friend told the story of when his fuel pump quit working out in the middle of nowhere. He removed the windshield washer reservor and the hose. He dumped the resevror, filled it with gas and hooked the hose to the carb. Whenever the engine would sputter he just pushed the washer button!

Quick Plug Changes on a hot engine. 4' Speed Handle with a Magnetic Socket on a Swivel. Tape the swivel to stiffen it up. The Big Speed Handle gives you plenty of torque and with some practice you can feed and start plugs with ease. Some guys started having elbow problems after a few years......

A friend told the story of when his fuel pump quit working out in the middle of nowhere. He removed the windshield washer reservor and the hose. He dumped the resevror, filled it with gas and hooked the hose to the carb. Whenever the engine would sputter he just pushed the washer button!

I've got one that is along this line, when my old Datsun P/U had an engine compartment fire out in the boonies one night, I was able to replace the fuel line and a few wires that it burned, but didn't have any extra spark plug wires. I dug around in the junk in the bed and found a rusty roll of hay bailing wire. Made plug wires from this, couldn't listen to the radio for the static, but I was riding again!
A friend, who was with me, told me that I could keep a vehicle running for six months with only 3' of bailing wire and 6' of duct tape

To magnetize a screw driver or other steel tool: Use a piece of insulated wire ~2' long with stripped ends. wrap insulated portion of wire in a tight coil around the screwdriver shaft, do not overlap. The more turns the stronger the magnetism will be. Now hold one end of the wire on one terminal of the battery and quickly "strike" the other end across the other battery terminal. This will briefly produce a spark, so be sure there is no gas or hydrogen gas fumes close by by ventilating the area around the battery prior to doing this! Don't hold the wire to the second terminal, just brush it across. Now unwrap the wire and check that the screwdriver is magnetic enough. Doing the same with a socket extension and 15-20 turns of wire will make any socket attached to it magnetic as well. This trick has save my bacon several times when I've dropped a small bolt or screw into a tight place and didn't have a magnetic retriever tool handy.

Worth paying attention to, AX. I grabbed a length of BRASS wire by mistake not long ago. Branded my dang fingers!
Wires coming out of the firewall? Get a radio antenna bezel from a rice burner(mine's a Honda), zap a couple of holes, use stainless screws and you got a nice shiny dust collector. Beats those black grommets.

here's some I've collected in a word document over the years... used most with good success. I used to know a lot more... but I forgotum

later
John

CRANK TURNER: Got an old steering wheel? Make up an adapter to match the steering wheel on one side and the crank snout on the other, bolt them together and presto!

PARTS PAN: You can buy small magnetized pans to keep small parts in as you disassemble something, but what if some of the components are bigger and you want to keep them with the smaller components? Get yourself an old transmission oil pan or an old steel baking pan, paint the inside white for high visability and put an old speaker magnet in the corner to hold the small parts.

TUBING TEMPLATE: Need to bend some hard line that will go into an confined space? Hard to get it right first time, so make yourself a template out of stiff wire like coat hangar wire and work out all the bends before hand. The results will look much better than guesswork.

JACK PADS: Got a real fine detailed clean undercarriage? Save it all from jack and stand damage by cutting out sections of rubber and epoxy them in place on the jacks etc. There are lots of companies now that produce rubber mats from recycled tires at cheap prices, sizes usually go from 1/8 to 1/2 inch thick. These work just great, and if you need thicker rubber, they manufacture thick rubber mats for horse stalls from old tires too.

SCREW/BOLT HOLDER: Keep losing that screw/bolt 'cos it's in a tight place and it just won't stay on the end of the screwdriver or ratchet? Jam the screw/bolt through a piece of electrical tape/duct tape, fit the driving tool to the screw/bolt and wrap the tape up onto the tool As soon as the fastener is threaded, remove the tape and tighten it down.

ANTISIEZE COMPOUND: Dip your fasteners in an antacid liquid. The calcium powder will dry to a white powder that won't burn off. And, when your project should all goes wrong as it occasionally will, you already have the antacid close to hand just for you.
TORQUE WRENCH: There are several types of torque wrench. The most common, (read: the cheapest) is the one with a long pointer that reads off a scale in front of the handle. The handle is pivoted in the center and should be kept "free floating" during use, other wise the torque readings can either be high or low, with possible unpleasant consequences.

HOLE SAW SAVER: Pack three or four wet paper towels inside the hole saw so that it will not overheat.

SMALL PARTS HOLDER: To keep small parts safe and clean,get a few plastic foam egg cartons. They are waterproof and have a built in lid.

DRILL DEPTH GAUGE: To drill holes of a specific depth, you need to use a locking depth gauge to stop the bit at the right spot. Don't have any? Wrap masking tape arount the drill shank at the appropriate depth and keep a steady hand and a sharp eye.

CHIP HOLDER: When you need to drill or tap a hole but don't want to have the metal chips fall into inaccessible areas, apply some white lithium grease to the volutes of the drill or tap, work slowly and remove the tool often to clean off the accumulated metal chips.

LEVEL JACKSTANDS: If you need to have your ride jacked up and level, paint each notch level of a pair of ratcheting jackstands a different colour. This will give you a quick reference instead of having to the count notches of the stands.

ENGINE STAND BOLTS: To save you having to hunt for, or even replace the long mounting bolts to your engine stand every time you need it, thread nuts onto the bolts while in the stand head. They'll be there when you need them.

SCREWDRIVER ANTI-SLIP: To keep that phillips screwdriver from slipping and rounding out the screw head, apply a little valve grinding compound to the tip of the screwdriver. This will give the driver a better grip and avoid slipping.

SAE vs METRIC: Working on a vehicle that uses both SAE and Metric fasteners can be frustrating enough to make you want to push it over a cliff and go buy a Harly. For a rough guide 1/2" = 13mm, 9/16" = 14mm, 11/16" = 17mm, 3/4" = 19mm and 13/16" = 21mm.

SHORT BOLT SYNDROME: Got a short bolt that needs to go into a hole and you can't use your fingers 'cos it's in a tight space, and if you put the bolt in the socket it drops right in and there are no threads you can use to start the bolt? Suff the socket with some foam rubber so that the threads are exposed, keep the bolt in the socket with some racers tape if nesessary. Now you can easily thread the bolt into the hole.

EASY FILLER SPOUT: Save those gear lube containers the next time you have one, y'know, the ones with the small spout and a handle. Not only does this design of container work great for filling rear gear cases, it's great for filling manual trans cases and it makes adding auto trans lube through the dipstick tube a breeze.

BODY BRUSH: You know the trick of using a toothbrush to clean out wax residue from body nooks and crannies, but to make a better version of this idea, go buy a 3 1/2" paint brush from your local hardware store and cut off all but 1/2" to 3/4"s of the bristles. Presto, a pro looking body brush.

TIMING LIGHT TIP: All timing lights are not the same! Many lights are designed to work under a 2000RPM range. Some are equipped with a trigger delay, something that has very little effect on light performance at very low engine speeds. but when an engine is brought up to race levels for timing verification, the timing appears to retard. Some lights are affected by radio frequency noise, and that's common if your ride is fitted with solid core primary wires. Many timing lights are simply inaccurate, and that does not exclude some hi-buck units. Two very good lights are the Sears Pensky or Sears Craftsman light part #A-2134 and the MSD lights, part # 8990.

EXTENSION TUBE: If you have to use glue, silicone, caulking, weatherstrip adhesive or other semi-liquid product in a hard to reach location, add a section of small diameter rubber hose, (vacuum or windshield washer hose), to the tip if the tube of product that you are going to use. This allows you to reach ares that before you could not.

WOBBLY FIX: Every so often you'll get a flexible socket adapter that loosens up to the point where every time you go to use it it just falls over to it's extreme flex and its a pain. A quick fix, is to tightly wrap a couple of turns of racers (duct) tape around the adapter joint and it will regain it's previous stiffness of movement. When the tape wears ou,t simply replace it. It's cheaper than a new unit.

TRANS ALIGNMENT: One of the most hardest things to do is to re-install an auto-trans without the proper equipment. Alignment it is a real pain 'cos the tranny is heavy as well as awkward. To help you do this easier, find two bolts with the same thread as the tranny mount bolts but longer. Make sure that they both thread easily into the blocks trans mount holes, then cut the heads off of each giving the cut ends a nice rounded chamfer. Now slice a slot across the blank ends of both studs that you have made. Install the studs in the engine block and then install the tranny, guiding it in to it's proper alignment using your new alignment studs. After the tranny is in place you can remove the alignment studs via the slots you made in the ends, with a screwdriver.

CHEAP SCRIBE: You don't have a metal scribe to your name, but you do have chewed phillips screwdriver. Simply grind the head of the bum driver into a nice sharp point. Now you don't have a chewed philips driver but you do have new metal scribe. HINT: Let it air cool after grinding so that the metal shaft retains it's hardness.

DRIFT OR PUNCH; Engines that have pushrod activated fuel pumps off a cam eccentric are a great source of superior hard steel for turning into drifts and punches, (assuming you can find a stone tough enough to grind it with). Much of the time they can be found lying around on the ground in wrecking yards and they'll be given to you if you ask.

SPARK CHECKER: These items can be bought for a reasonable dollar, but if you don't have one on hand you can easily make one. Take a new (or good) spark plug and either weld a moderately large alligator clip to it's metal side or drill a 1/16" hole in the outer steel shell and tap it for a 8-32 machine screw about 1/4" long. Now make a lead wire about 12-18" long. On one end solder a small eylet and on the other an alligator clip. The eyelet end is attatched to the plug via the machine screw and the alligator clip goes to a good ground source. Now insert the tool into the end of the plug wire to check and observe the spark using a remote starter unit. No spark, start looking for the problem.

QUICK FLARE: Need a flare wrench but don't have one on hand. Make one out of a box end wrench. Simply cut a slot in the end of the box wrench just big enough to slip over the line, and presto, a twelve point flare wrench.

BALANCER INSTALLER: Don't whack an harmonic balancer on to the crank end with a hammer, quite simply put .................you'll bugger it up! Instead, get yourself an 8" leangth of ready rod the same thread as the balancer bolt and two nuts to fit the rod. Thread it into the crank snout, slide on the balancer, next slide on the thick stock washer for the balancer and tighten down the first of the two nust you got. When the balancer is fully installed using this kinder, gentler method, snug up the second nut to the first, and back out the threaded rod. Now install the balancer bolt to specs. Voila! You now have a nice new tool and a balancer that is still in one piece!

SMALL PARTS: Save those clear 35mm film canisters. They are great for saving small parts in or selections of carb jets or fragile items or jet drills or 'C' clips or ............yadda yadda yadda.....

Sam's club sells a pack of dense foam mats that look like giant puzzle pieces that are ~ 30" square. buy yourself a pack, they are the handiest things to have around the shop! Use them to kneel or sit/lay on while working (interlock two or more to make a larger mat), put under parts you don't want to scratch or slide around, hang between cars or on the wall in the garage to prevent door dings, you'll find hundreds of uses for them. They do not soak up oil or water, and can be washed with soap and water to near new condition.
Hockey pucks are another multi-use item. Made of a hard but flexible rubber, I have a set under the legs of my compressor to keep it from walking across the floor. use them for lift blocks on the pad of my floor jack and have used them as a body dolly. The can be sawn, drilled or sanded to make other shapes.